5 Werkstofftechnik
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Calcium cobaltite is one of the most promising oxide p-type thermoelectric materials. The solid-state reaction (or calcination, respectively), which is well known for large-scale powder synthesis of functional materials, can also be used for the synthesis of thermoelectric oxides. There are various calcination routines in literature for Ca3Co4O9 powder synthesis, but no systematic study has been done on the influence of calcination procedure on thermoelectric properties. Therefore, the influence of calcination conditions on the Seebeck coefficient and the electrical conductivity was studied by modifying calcination temperature, dwell time, particle size of raw materials and number of calcination cycles. This study shows that elevated temperatures, longer dwell times, or repeated calcinations during powder synthesis do not improve but deteriorate the thermoelectric properties of calcium cobaltite. Diffusion during calcination leads to idiomorphic grain growth, which lowers the driving force for sintering of the calcined powder. A lower driving force for sintering reduces the densification. The electrical conductivity increases linearly with densification. The calcination procedure barely influences the Seebeck coefficient. The calcination procedure has no influence on the phase formation of the sintered specimens.
The possibility to produce dense monolithic ceramic parts with additive manufacturing is at the moment restricted to small parts with low wall thickness. Up to now, the additive manufacturing of voluminous ceramic parts is realized by powder bed based processes which, however, generate parts with residual porosity. Via infiltration these parts can be processed to dense parts like for example SiC but this is not possible for all ceramics like for example Si3N4. There is a lack of methods for the additive manufacturing of dense voluminous parts for most ceramics.
We have developed a new additive manufacturing technology, the Laser Induced Slip casting (LIS), based on the layerwise deposition of slurries and their local drying by laser radiation. Laser Induced Slip casting generates ceramic green bodies which can be sintered to dense ceramic components like traditional formed ceramic powder compacts. We will introduce the LIS technology, green bodies and sintered parts will be shown and their microstructure and mechanical properties will be discussed.
Soiling of photovoltaic (PV) systems compromises their performance causing a significant power loss and demanding periodical cleaning actions. This phenomenon raises great concerns in the solar energy field, thus leading to notable research efforts over the last decades. Soiling is caused by a dual action of dust deposition and biofouling. However, surprisingly, the microbiological contribution to PV soiling is often overlooked or underestimated. In this study, a variety of qPCR-based methods have been developed to quantify the microbial load of fungi, bacteria and phototrophs on PV panels. These protocols were evaluated by comparison with culturedependent methods, and were implemented with real solar plants for two years. The results show that the developed molecular methods are highly sensitive and reliable to monitor the microbial component of the soiling. Fungal biomass was clearly dominant in all analysed PV modules, while bacteria and phototrophs showed much lower abundance. Light microscopy and qPCR results revealed that melanised microcolonial fungi and phototrophs are the main biofilm-forming microorganisms on the studied solar panels. In particular, the fungal qPCR protocol is proposed as a useful tool for monitoring of PV soiling, and investigating the microbial contribution to specific soiling cases.
Today, more than 12% of the primary energy is lost in the form of waste heat. Thermoelectric generators (TEGs) can convert waste heat directly into electrical power by utilizing the Seebeck effect. The performance of such a generator is defined by a dimensionless figure of merit ZT of the thermoelectric pairs and the resistance R of the metallic contacts between these pairs. The figure of merit of thermoelectric oxides is considerably smaller compared to semiconductors. Still, thermoelectric oxides like calcium cobaltite (Ca3Co4O9) are attractive for applications at elevated temperatures in air. In contrast to the established π-type architecture of common TEGs, tape casting and multilayer technology may be applied for cost-effective manufacturing of oxide TEGs. Promising demonstrations of multilayer TEGs have been published in the last years. Still, the development of reliable and scalable manufacturing processes and proper material combinations is necessary. The aim of our project is to evaluate the feasibility of low temperature co-fired ceramics (LTCC) technology for a practical manufacturing of oxide multilayer TEGs of Ca3Co4O9 (p-type) and calcium manganate (CaMnO3, n-type). Ca3Co4O9 exhibits an undesired phase decomposition at 926 °C. Because of that, the application of sintering strategies and interconnect concepts well known from LTCC technology is a promising approach. We present results of pressure-assisted sintering of Ca3Co4O9 multilayer at 900 °C and axial pressures of up to 7.5 MPa. Ca3Co4O9 was produced by solid state reaction of CaCO3 and cobalt(II,III)oxide at 900 °C. Green tapes were prepared by a doctor-blade process, manually stacked and laminated by uniaxial thermocompression. Sintering was conducted in a LTCC sintering press between SiC setter plates. The thickness shrinkage was recorded by an in-situ technique. After sintering under 7.5 MPa, the microstructure of the single phase material shows a high density of 95 % and an advantageous alignment of the platelet grains. This results in good electrical conductivity and a comparatively high ZT of 0.018 at room temperature. However, the lowering of CaMnO3 sintering temperature from above 1200 °C to below 920 °C remains a challenge. To select a proper metal paste for interconnections of an oxide TEG, several pastes have been investigated regarding contact resistance of internal and external (soldered) connections in a preliminary study. Commercial pastes containing Ag, Au, Au/Pt, Ag/Pd, and Ag/Pd/Bi were manually applied and post-fired on sintered test bars of Ca3Co4O9 and CaMnO3 at 900 °C for 2 h. All tested pastes formed mechanically stable metallization after firing. For resistance measurement, 4-wire method and a custom-made probe head were used. The contacts on Ca3Co4O9 exhibit significantly (2-sample t-test, α = 5%) higher resistance compared to contacts on CaMnO3. Pure silver paste exhibits the lowest resistance for internal contacts on both materials, lower than 5 mΩ on CaMnO3. Ag/Pd/Bi paste resulted in conspicuously high variance of resistance. EDX analyses clarified an enrichment of Bi in the thermoelectric material near the interface and thereby the formation of an oxide layer with probably high electrical resistance. The thickness of that layer varies with the thickness of metallization. In conclusion, the use of Bi containing pastes is not advisable. Pure Ag paste shows the best results regarding resistance and solderability.
Helical springs with a rectangular cross-section have been machined from sintered and grinded hollow cylinders with high geometrical precision and good reproducibility. Such springs made from tetragonal zirconia polycrystal (TZP) ceramic show excellent edge quality because of high fracture toughness and bending strength of the starting material. Hence, springs with desired geometric dimension and tailored spring constant can be manufactured for highly demanding applications at high temperatures and in harsh environments.
Prior to any practical use, application limits of springs under mechanical and thermal load have to be analyzed. Therefore, different displacement experiments were carried out on the helical TZP springs.
- Dynamic displacement tests at various temperatures from -15°C to +60°C using a piezo actor to load/unload springs with frequencies between 1 and 40 Hz: Springs remained undamaged and the spring constants were not altered, even after more than one million cycles of compression loading.
- Long-time displacement measurements under static tensile loading at room temperature with a high-precision interferometer test facility: Significant spring elongation under constant strain was surprisingly proved over a period of many hours already at room temperature.
- Creeping experiments for 48 h under static compression load at different temperatures up to 1000 °C: After cooling down and load removing no permanent length reduction of springs was observed for test temperatures up to 700 °C. However, reshaping of TZP springs by plastic deformation is possible at higher temperatures and opens up additional possibilities for spring design and manufacturing.
Thermoelectric materials can convert waste heat directly into electrical power by using the Seebeck effect. Calcium cobaltite Ca3Co4O9 is a promising p-type oxide thermoelectric material for applications between 600 °C and 900 °C in air. The properties and morphology of Ca3Co4O9 are strongly anisotropic because of its crystal structure of alternating layers of CoO2 and Ca2CoO3. By aligning the plate-like grains, the anisotropic properties can be assigned to the component. Pressure-assisted sintering (PAS), as known from large-scale production of low temperature co-fired ceramics, was used to sinter multilayers of Ca3Co4O9 green tape at 900 °C with different pressures and dwell times. In-situ shrinkage measurements, microstructural investigations and electric measurements were performed. Pressure-less sintered multilayers have a 2.5 times higher electrical conductivity at room temperature than dry pressed test bars with randomly oriented particles. The combination of tape casting and PAS induces a pronounced alignment of the anisotropic grains. Relative density increases from 57 % after free sintering for 24 h to 94 % after 2 h of PAS with 10 MPa axial load. By applying a uniaxial pressure of 10 MPa during sintering, the electrical conductivity (at 25°C) improves by a factor of 15 compared to test bars with randomly oriented particles. The high temperature thermoelectric properties show the same dependencies. The smaller the applied axial load, the lower the relative densities, and the lower the electrical conductivity. Longer dwell times may increase the density and the electrical conductivity significantly if the microstructure is less densified as in the case of a small axial load like 2 MPa. At higher applied pressures the dwell time has no significant influence on the thermoelectric properties. This study shows that PAS is a proper technique to produce dense Ca3Co4O9 panels with good thermoelectric properties similar to hot-pressed tablets, even in large-scale production.
Powder based Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes are widely used for metallic and polymeric materials, but rarely commercially used for ceramic materials, especially for technical ceramics. This seemingly contradicting observation is explained by the fact that in powder based AM, a dry flowable powder needs to be used. Technical ceramics powders are in fact typically very fine and poorly flowable, which makes them not suitable for AM. The layerwise slurry deposition (LSD) is an innovative process for the deposition of powder layers with a high packing density for powder based AM. In the LSD process, a ceramic slurry is deposited to form thin powder layers, rather than using a dry powder This allows the use of fine powders and achieves high packing density (55-60%) in the layers after drying. When coupled with a printing head or with a laser source, the LSD enables novel AM technologies which are similar to *Denotes Presenter 42nd International Conference & Exposition on Advanced Ceramics & Composites 127 Abstracts the 3D printing or selective laser sintering, but taking advantage of having a highly dense powder bed. The LSD -3D printing, in particular, offers the potential of producing large (> 100 mm) and high quality ceramic parts, with microstructure and properties similar to traditional processing. This presentation will give an overview of the milestones in the development of this technology, with focus on the latest results applied both to silicate and to technical ceramics.
The sintering behavior and the thermoelectric performance of Ca3Co4O9 multilayer laminates were studied, and a multilayer thermoelectric generator was fabricated. Compacts and multilayer samples with anisotropic microstructure and residual porosity were obtained after conventional sintering at 920 °C, whereas dense and isotropic multilayer samples were prepared by firing at 1200 °C and reoxidation at 900 °C. A hot-pressed sample has a dense and anisotropic microstructure. Samples sintered at 920 °C exhibit low electrical conductivity due to the low density, whereas the Seebeck coefficient is not sensitive to preparation conditions. However, thermal conductivity of multilayers is very low, and, hence acceptable ZT values are obtained. A ransversal multilayer thermoelectric generator (TMLTEG) was fabricated by stacking layers of Ca3Co4O9 green tapes, AgPd conductor printing, and co-firing at 920 °C. The TMLTEG has a power output of 3 mW at ΔT =200 K in the temperature interval of 25 °C to 300 °C.
Sand erosion of solar glass: Specific energy uptake, total transmittance, and module efficiency
(2018)
Surface roughness, R Z , normal transmittance, Τ N , total transmittance, Τ T , and photovoltaic (PV) module efficiency, η S , were measured for commercial solar glass plates and PV test modules identically sandblasted with different loads of quartz sand (200 – 400 μ m), impact inclination angles, and sand particle speed. Measured data are presented versus the specific energy uptake during sand blasting, E (J/m2). Cracks, adhering particles, and scratch ‐ like textures probably caused by plastic flow phenomena could be observed after sand blasting. Their characteristic size was much smaller than that of sand particles.
After blasting and subsequent cleaning, the glass surface was still covered with adhering glass particles. These particles, cracks, and scratch ‐ like textures could not be removed by cleaning. For sand blasting with α = 30° inclination angle and E = 30 000 J/m2, normal transmittance, total transmittance, and relative module efficiency decreased by 29%, 2% and ∽ 2%, respectively. This finding indicates that diffusive transmission of light substantially contributes to PV module efficiency and that the module efficiency decrease caused by sand erosion can be better estimated from total than by normal transmittance measurements.
Dry pressing of ceramic materials requires homogeneously soft granules with good flowability to allow rapid die filling and to avoid packing defects. Spray-drying granulation appears to be the best method for obtaining granules with high flowability in industrial scale. But, strength reducing internal microstructural defects caused by spray-dried granules with hollow and hard shells are often observed using nano and/or multi-component starting powders.
Using the example of a ZTA composite, the potential of slurry optimization, ultrasound atomization and infrared drying for better granule properties and compaction behavior were investigated. Starting granules produced in a conventional spray dryer (Niro, Denmark) with a two fluid nozzle showed typical defects like large central pores and dimples.
The early step of slurry preparation already possesses an essential optimization possibility in the form of stability adjustments. Granule compaction was clearly improved upon a specific reduction in slurry stability. The second optimization opportunity to improve the granule quality was the atomization step. Implementation of an ultrasound atomizing unit into the conventional spray dryer positively affected granule size distribution and therefor flowability and as well granule yield. But, a combination of both process optimizations delivered the best sinter bodies with highest density and strength due to further reduction in maximum size and fraction of pores.
As last step of a spray drying process, the drying is the focus of further investigations. A current setup implying a spray dryer prototype utilizes stacked infrared heater in a countercurrent setup delivering a further increase in granule yield and enduring spraying process stability.